The Leaving Story
by a.bolina
Summary: [Complete] Severus Snape remembers a promise. Albus Dumbledore makes a sacrifice. Hermione Granger is spared. Something new has begun... HGSS of a kind
1. The Light Side

THE LEAVING STORY  
  
~*~*~  
  
Summary- Severus Snape remembers a promise. Albus Dumbledore makes a sacrifice. Hermione Granger is spared. Something new has begun.  
  
Warning- Tiny reference to suicide and dark themes. That's all.  
  
Disclaimer- You know what is owned by J.K. Rowling. The title is taken from an A.F.I, song called The Leaving Song. Care to guess the inspiration here?  
  
~*~*~  
  
The Light Side-  
  
I made a decision many years ago that I now find myself regretting. I promised myself I would never let another innocent young girl, muggle or witch, die while I sat by, maybe just capable of preventing it. Why do I regret that oath now? Because Albus Dumbledore sits here telling me he is willing to sacrifice you. Because I will have to give up everything I have. But maybe you are not such an innocent. I dare not hope, but I must know.  
  
"Is she a virgin?" I ask. Albus Dumbledore looks at me. Harry Potter looks at me. Neither of them understands. Harry Potter turns to look at Ronald Weasley. Ronald Weasley nods. He would know.  
  
"Why do you ask, Severus?" Albus Dumbledore asks me.  
  
"Because a virgin's blood is useful in many potions," I lie. He should be repulsed. Your friends should be repulsed. They are not. I wonder, in truth, if I am on the Light side anymore.  
  
"We would not let her sacrifice go to waste, Severus," Albus Dumbledore says. I hate him now. I've hated him before. This is nothing new. He talks about it too easily. You are nothing to him, just a pawn in his sick game, an expendable cost.  
  
You should not be anything to me, but I find that you are. Even if your curly brown hair, dark eyes, and tiny features are so different from my own black eyes, lank hair, and sharp edges, I still see myself in you. You wanted to learn, something that is indeed rare amongst youth, but so like me. Now I fear you know too much. Now I fear you've learned what made me the man I am.  
  
I remember how you looked after you discovered your parents were killed. I had tried to prevent it from happening, but Albus Dumbledore had the final say. He always has the final say, and Mr. and Mrs. Granger were just another sacrifice he was willing to make.  
  
He makes it so easy for people to hate him with his impossibly bright blue eyes and pretended age-old wisdom. But does he really know? I doubt it. I doubt he understand what only the abused can know. Has he ever tried to take a knife to his own wrinkling wrists? I can see from the lack of any white scars on them that he has not.  
  
"What shall I tell the Dark Lord?" I ask, knowing the answer.  
  
"Tell him we will not be involved in any transaction," Albus Dumbledore says. Did I mention I hate him?  
  
I nod anyways. It is my job: to nod to one master and to nod to the other. But not anymore. I am my own master now.  
  
I savor this memory, to show you in my pensive after we escape.  
  
I leave Albus Dumbledore's office, but not before ever so discretely plucking a single hair off Harry Potter's head. I honestly pity the first Slytherin I come across. He will be taking a Polyjuice potion with Harry Potter's hair in it and becoming the Boy Who Lived for an hour.  
  
I come across Draco Malfoy. This is probably the best scenario. Because of Lucius Malfoy's loyalty to the Dark Lord, Voldemort will spare the boy, even when he realizes my treachery. Never trust anyone except Hufflepuffs, and be wary of even them.  
  
"Follow me," I say to Draco. It is not an request, but a command that is responded to because of the Imperious curse I have already cast upon him.  
  
He follows me obediently to my office. I place Harry Potter's hair in an already pre-made, emergency potion. I tell Draco to drink it. He does. We wait, for forty-five minutes. Then I get up and walk him to the gates of Hogwarts.  
  
When we get there, I knock him on the back of the head with a specialized spell. It is a rather primitive, but affective way of rending one unconscious without causing any permenent damage. I grab his sinking body and Apparate to where the Dark Lord is waiting.  
  
Voldemort is happy to see me, and euphoric to see my burden: Harry Potter. He does not notice that the boy's glazed over eyes are blue instead of his mother's green. I knew he wouldn't.  
  
I am less than euphoric to see you. The trauma you have been through is more than I would wish upon my worst enemy. Lucius grabs you by your hair and throws you at me. I throw his own well-disguised son at him. You look up at me.  
  
"You came," you say, voice hushed. Then, loud enough for everyone to hear, "And Harry's eyes are green."  
  
I Apparate with you to a series of locations, smiling at your idea of a parting joke on your captors. We end up in China somewhere. I look up at the well hidden cottage next to us. The small old woman who taught me everything I know about Potions and life is standing in the doorframe, surrounded by her usual array of magical creatures. A newborn unicorn is tethered to her fence post. I carry you up to the old woman.  
  
"You came back," the old woman says. She looks at you. "You kept your promise."  
  
"Yes," I say. Somewhere a Polyjuice potion is wearing off. Somewhere Albus Dumbledore is planning his next sacrifice. Me, I'm making new promises, ones I now know I have the strength to keep.  
  
~*~*~ Thank-you for reading. A.H. 


	2. My Promise

THE LEAVING STORY  
  
~*~*~  
  
My Promise-  
  
"You came back," I hear an old woman say. I cannot tell where we are, but I trust you. "You kept your promise," the old woman speaks again. She is talking to you, but somehow the words sink into my skin. How many promises have I broken? I said I would die for Harry Potter. I said I would die for the cause. But I am not dead yet.  
  
"Yes," is all you say to the old woman. You are still carrying my frail body. Your long fingers are wrapped protectively around me. You kept your promise, whatever it was. It is time for me to make a promise to keep. My life is yours to do as you wish. I will tell you this in the morning, once I am fully recovered. Somehow I know I will be better by then.  
  
You carry me into the woman's cottage and lay me down on the only bed in the one room building. Are those fairies dancing around the woman's body? She turns to prepare some potion, undoubtedly for me. You look at me in what you hope is a compassionate way. You need some practice, but I will not tell you this.  
  
"Why didn't Harry and Ron rescue me?" I ask, assuming you are looking at me hoping I'll ask just that. I am right. The Gryffindor know-it-all within me rejoices.  
  
"They agreed with Dumbledore that you were a sacrifice that had to be made," you say. I thought as much. I wonder why you wanted to tell me so. Do you want me to hate them? I have before. It is not as hard as you might think.  
  
The old woman comes over now, and pours a liquid down my throat. I cough and sputter most of it up. Neither you nor she is surprised. Then I fall into a deep sleep and dream of things that could have been.  
  
I awake to darkness and forget momentarily where I am. Then I remember. I roll over and see the small flickering of a candle. You are sitting there with the woman. She has her hands covering your own on the table. Your head is bowed and she is whispering something. Your gaze flickers to me for a moment. I fear you will tell the woman to stop so she can tend to me.  
  
You don't, and she continues murmuring in some unrecognizable tongue. It comforts me immensely. You seem comforted, too.  
  
"Bring her here," the old woman says. We both sigh, wishing she would continue with her talking, but you obey anyways. You kneel in front of my face.  
  
"You can walk." I shake my head. "Try," you insist. I frown. Don't you understand what I've been through? I remember my promise. I try. I fail. The Gryffindor know-it-all within me smiles on.  
  
You smile sadly, and help me. Together we walk over to the table and you place me in the chair and stand behind me.  
  
You gently place my hands together on the table. The old woman covers them with her own and begins murmuring again. I bow my head like you did. The comforting feeling is increased by a ten-fold. I drift off, into a haze. I see things I have not before, and suddenly understand things that were once a mystery.  
  
I see what will be if things continue as they are. Neither Light nor Dark will ever prosper, just merge into one horrific cause.  
  
I see what will be if things change, if someone stands up to stop it all. I see families being raised. I see children smiling again. I see hope. I feel elated. I know it is possible.  
  
Then it ends suddenly. I look up at the woman, but she is already gone, brewing a potion over a large cauldron. I look at you.  
  
"Do you understand?" you ask. I nod. Something new has begun, and it scares me. I tell you this. You nod. It scares you too. I wonder why it had to be me and you, you and me, that were the firsts.  
  
"What was the promise you kept?" I ask. I don't really expect an answer. In fact, I am still waiting for you to sneer at me. I am still waiting for me to wake up and find myself still chained to some dungeon walls while Lucius Malfoy tells me my friends don't care about me enough to come.  
  
"I have kept many promises tonight. The one she," you say, gesturing to the old woman, "was talking about was to return, and allow her to show me what she has just blessed us both with. I kept a promise to myself of never allowing another innocent child to die while I stood by, doing nothing." I nod. "I have not been very good at keeping that promise to myself," you say. I start to believe you can read minds as that was the one question on my mind that instant.  
  
"What do we do now?" I ask.  
  
"We return, and complete the task ahead of us as you know we must," you say. I nod. Obedient forever. I'll tell you that in the morning, when I have recovered. I notice light peaking through the foggy window panes. I decide my definition of morning has changed along with my definition of recovery. Morning will be when I can awake and look at all those I love again without a fear they will be taken from me by the next break of dawn. Recovery will be when I forget what it feels like to be abandoned.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Authors Note- Three reviews and I decided to continue? Of course. It won't be a horribly long fic. Just a new take on the inevitable "war."  
  
Love, A.H. 


	3. Tears of Lost Hope

THE LEAVING STORY  
  
~*~*~  
  
Tears of Lost Hope-  
  
"You came back," you say, standing where the old woman used to. I smile. No matter how long I am gone, you will always be waiting in the doorframe for me. It is a consistency that I need in times like these.  
  
Her creatures are approaching you cautiously. Do you notice? The old woman has died, and you have taken her place. I knew it wouldn't, couldn't be me, but I had hoped you would be spared from the burden of her knowledge.  
  
"Potter will be coming shortly," I say, watching your face for a reaction. There is none. I missed the actually day you recovered from that particular injury. I wish it still hurt you, in my twisted hate of all things In Between. Harry Potter is In Between. Albus Dumbledore is In Between.  
  
We, together in our accepted rage and peace, make up two-thirds of the true Light. In fact, we make up all that is left alive of the true Light. The old woman was the main source of Light, but she is dead and buried, where Light cannot reach her.  
  
I look towards where I know the old woman's grave is. A fully grown unicorn lays weeping next to her headstone. It is the same unicorn I saw tethered to her fence when we first came here together. How many years does that take, for unicorn to mature? More than three. Is that how long we have been here? Is that how long we have been fighting?  
  
"That is how long we have been fighting, sir," you say. I was not aware I had spoken aloud.  
  
"And what have we achieved in those three years? Only an assurance that our heads will be the most desired when this forsaken world meets its doom, no matter which side prospers?" I spit at you. Funny that I should be half of what is left in the true Light. I am darker than even you can imagine.  
  
"Among other things, sir, namely which is a great deal more hope than we had originally," you say, stirring a potion in one of the many cauldrons in the cottage. It is not 'our' cottage, yet we live there most of the time. It will never be 'our' cottage.  
  
I sit down at the, not our, table.  
  
"What did Harry say to you?" I hear you asking. I don't want to answer. Why is it that you are allowed to stay at the cottage taking care of creatures while I must attempt to convince lost souls to help us redeem the world?  
  
Then I remember. I ask you to stay here. You are not happy about it, but you always do what I ask. I wonder why. Is it some sort of misplaced debt you imagine you owe me? Is it simply a way of fulfilling your own need for consistency? Somewhere within myself, I imagine it has something to do with the way you watch the sun rise every morning when you think I am not looking.  
  
"He's here," you say, and I know you can sense the change that has come over the creatures.  
  
The knock expected at the door comes, and you walk over, in all your righteousness, to answer.  
  
"Oh," you say. I look up from the cup of tea I had gotten myself sometime during my travels through my thoughts. It was supposed to be Harry Potter, not a busy looking Ministry official sent to deal with th Minister's minuscule business. It is a good thing I did not bother to get my hopes up. You are not so fortunate.  
  
"Sorry, Harry couldn't make it. You know how things are, him being new Minister and all. Then again, maybe you don't," the worn looking man you once counted as a friend says, sending a glance at me. I know he thinks the rumors are true, that I have run off and bewitched you into abandoning your life and coming with me. Does he not realize his active part in abandoning you?  
  
"Harry didn't want to come, sir, and you know it would be pointless to tell him anything if he didn't want to know," you say to me, trying to look resigned to the whole matter.  
  
"And he wants to be here? He wants to know?" I ask you of our uninvited guest. I do not regret the sadness I have made fall over your features. You look at the shadow that has replaced the once sunny Gryffindor keeper.  
  
He realizes we are asking him a question, indirectly.  
  
"Oh yes! If you have something important, or that might just help our cause a bit, then of course I'll be glad to hear it." You start to calmly tell him what I would have yelled into his face.  
  
"There is no 'our cause' at the moment. There is Severus's and my cause, and there is your cause, the In Between's cause."  
  
He laughs. I look at you, asking permission to wring his throat now.  
  
"Ah yes, Harry told me your would bring up some 'in between' business or another. If you haven't any information that will help the Light, I really must be getting back." He stood. You stand. I bury my face in my arms, defeated already. It has been too long, and too hard, and I am simply too fed up. When will I finally be allowed rest?  
  
"The information we have for you is the Light. The true Light. What cause you are currently supporting is the In Between. Lucius Malfoy is part of the In between, Peter Pettigrew is part of the In Between. The Dark Lord and perhaps the dementors are what exists of the Dark side. Please, Ron, listen." He is already opening the door. He turns around before closing it behind him.  
  
"Hermione, I don't know what Snape's been telling you, or what potion he's been giving you to convince you to remain here, but as soon as I have a free moment, I'll get you out of here and have him thrown in Azkaban for whatever it is." He leaves, red hair being the last feature to disappear behind the door. You sit down on the floor. The white cotton robes you are wearing flair about you, reminding me distinctly of melting snow. We find ourselves alone again.  
  
Something in my ability to comprehend my surroundings must have diminished in the past few years. I look up from my examination of the subtle designs in your robes to see your head covered in your slender hands and silent sobs racking your body.  
  
Defeat of this sort does that to you. Whenever I can convince someone to come to the cottage, they leave no more educated about the truth than when they came. It started with Remus Lupin. Neither of us expected anything from him. He loved Harry and Dumbledore too much to imagine them capable of anything but Light. Luna Lovegood was next. You were sure she, who always believed the unbelievable, would join us. I was not so confident. It was one of the few times I did not relish in being right.  
  
Next, and most recent short of her brother, was Ginny Weasley. You thought she would see. I must admit, I did too. She was one of the abused, one of the tormented, but the wounds were healed before Light touched her enough.  
  
An epiphany comes to me. It is not the abused, but the abandoned. I've learned to abhor that word: abandon. Ginny Weasley was not abandoned. Potter went after her, and she was rescued and coddled 'till there was no doubting that someone somewhere cared. You and I were not given such comfort. I and you were left to fend for ourselves.  
  
My disregard of my surroundings leads me to find myself with my arms wrapped around you. I feel your tears dripping down my cheeks.  
  
I sit with you, sharing in your mourning over the injustices life has handed us, its only true servants. I cry with you for our own selfish hope of relief from the burdens we carry.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Author's Note- The phenomenal reviews I have received make it impossible for me to feel I have lived up to your expectations, but thank-you anyways and here it is.  
  
Love, A.H. 


	4. The Great Disappointment

THE LEAVING STORY  
  
Disclaimer- Chapter title is taken from another AFI song obviously titled "The Great Disappointment."  
  
~*~*~  
  
The Great Disappointment-  
  
I look at you, sitting here in our shared cell. You are angry at many things. You are angry at Voldemort for failing before Light could be understood. You are angry at Dumbledore for all the lies.  
  
Perhaps worst of all, you are angry at me. Although you will never tell me this, I can see it. You are angry at me for what you know I am about to say. I wish I didn't have to do it, for your sake, and that will only make you hate me more.  
  
"I'm sorry." There, I said it. You don't look at me, knowing that it is the best way to hurt me. There, I am hurt. What more do you want? I cannot change what has happened, only resign silently to our doom.  
  
"You have nothing to be sorry for," you lie.  
  
"Yes I do. Don't lie," I say. You should be mad at me for offering you hope when you were completing your protective walls. It has been four years since I started disassembling your citadel. I regret ever having started. It only hurt you more in the end.  
  
Four long years have passed and we will finally be granted our rest, but not in the way we want it. We had dreams of a peaceful world, where it would be harder to find the gray than the white. We had dreams of a world where everyone understood what we know. That cannot be now.  
  
Instead, we were given a false trial that sentenced us to death. At least the Dark Lord's demise led to the extinction of the dementors, sparing us from their kiss.  
  
I am about to go to you, to hold you the way you always did for me when the cell door opens.  
  
It is the Minister, or more accurately, Harry Potter. He has come to see me.  
  
"Hermione," he says. You stay where you are, although I rise and go to Harry.  
  
I stand in front of him, and watch the little shreds of goodness in the back of his eyes tear themselves to pieces.  
  
"Oh, Harry," I say, cupping his face in my hands. He pulls away, as I knew he would.  
  
"I told you that you could be freed. I told you to simply tell the truth, that Snape forced you into this, Hermione. Why didn't you listen to me? I had no choice but to convict you," he says. You look up finally, from the ground, at me instead of him. Both of us know this is my only chance to live. Both of us know I will choose death.  
  
"Harry," I say, touching his nose lightly. "Harry, I couldn't lie, just like you can't believe that this is what I'd choose."  
  
He scowls at me.  
  
"What happened, Hermione? What happened to the brave little know-it all that I knew?" he asks me.  
  
I look down, prepared to tell him I am still here. You have other plans.  
  
"She died! She died the day YOU chose to leave her in the clutches of evil! She died the day you decided she was something you could sacrifice! And what's worse! She's better for it. She's better off NOT being friends with you! She's better off the way she is!" you yell at him. I have seen you this angry before, and am not startled. Harry is. He glares at you, glares at me, and walks out the door with his head held high.  
  
I look at you. You are steaming.  
  
"Thank-you," I say to you.  
  
"You have nothing to be thankful for."  
  
I don't respond, knowing I don't have to. You sit back down, and I sit next to you. We fall asleep like that, with me whispering soft words in your ears.  
  
Very early, on the very next morning, I find myself standing in front of what once would have been Hagrid's Hut at Hogwarts. His hut is not there. It has been replaced by a platform of sorts. It reminds me of the stage Lockhart set up with you during our second year to teach dueling. I share the comparison with you, and you smile at the memory.  
  
I wish you had smiled more often before now, when our hours on Earth are slowly dwindling to nothingness.  
  
I look through the strands of hair that have blown across my face towards what once was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is changed now, in ways unimaginable.  
  
The bricks have crumbled in parts, and the flags that once shone brightly have faded and torn. When I lean back a bit I can actually see into the Great Hall through a window that has been enlarged by the failing of the decrepit bricks near it.  
  
The whole area reeks of death. I can feel it.  
  
You shiver slightly next to me. I move closer to you, almost involuntarily. I notice your gaze is firmly fixed upon Hogwarts' bent gates. Harry Potter is leading a procession of black garbed figures. They are his army, or rather the current students of Harry Potter's school of Training New In Betweens.  
  
Harry doesn't call it that, but you did. I remember the day you said that name. It was one of the times when we could still laugh at things, enjoy good irony.  
  
Harry and his procession have reached us.  
  
"You will all cast the Killing Curse in turn on one of the prisoners. They are all criminals, having committed many things from murder to treason." Harry looked at us when he said treason. Both of us noticed.  
  
You look at me. We feel alone on our podium of criminals. Standing next to me is a rapist, next to you is a thief.  
  
Something in your eyes is asking me for forgiveness of things I can not understand.  
  
"I'm sorry I ever asked you to stay. God only knows why you listened, but I'm sorry all the same," you say. The people around us stare. Somewhere, near the beginning of the line of criminals, there is a flash of green light and a small thud. I missed the casting of the Killing Curse.  
  
The sun is just breaking through the dull gray of the grounds.  
  
There is another flash of light, but this time I am deaf to the thud of a dead body as well as the voice of the caster.  
  
I make my decision then and there. I do not pretend to know anything about the life that lies beyond, or even pretend to be sure such a life exists.  
  
'Green light means go', I think, laughing at my forever muggle like mind.  
  
"Remember the day you rescued me?" You nod. "I remember hearing you talk about the promises you've kept. I made one, to never leave your side, and obey you solely." You frown. "I didn't tell you, 'till now, and I just needed to before we were gone..."  
  
You look at me, eyes unreadable even to me. The sun has risen behind us, reflecting off broken windows of Hogwarts.  
  
There is a flash of green light directly next to you.  
  
"I'm sorry I never managed to ask you to do anything worth while. Maybe I just couldn't put something so dear to me in the face of danger," you say. I close my eyes. I feel your fingers ever so close to my ear, just grazing my hair.  
  
There is a flash of green light and your fingers fall limp before touching me.  
  
I turn to face my killer. You are gone, and I will be in a matter of moments. Somewhere, in between my fears of the unknown and relief of my responsibilities dispersing, I find Harry's method of training young children in the Killing Curse barbaric.  
  
"Wait," Harry says. The young boy who was preparing to kill me stopps mid-spell.  
  
"I'll get this one."  
  
I turn to Harry and smile. I am actually rather thankful he personally decided to kill me. No one, save maybe you, could appreciate the drama of it all.  
  
As he raises his wand, I mutely allow all feeling out of me, concentrating on the feel of brisk wind hitting my face. This isn't the worse way to die, most certainly not.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Author's Note- Well, that's that. Reviewers, there is no possible way I could express my gratitude to you.  
  
Love, (And I do mean it,) A.H. 


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